Yep, I'm very interested in the N9 myself. Still haven't bought it yet though, it's been 5+ years since I had a mobile phone without ScummVM and I'm not going back to that now. So someone need to port ScummVM for it first.Reply

I have an N9 and it is a nice device. I use it as a backup to my iPhone and it is quite worth. A bit quirky but still a nice phone. I like it MUCH better than the Android copy devices floating around.Reply

ScummVM was ported within two months for its predecessor, the N900, and is officially supported by the ScummVM community. Given the virtually identical (considering the ScummVM requirements) architecture from both the software and hardware point of view between Maemo 5 and Maemo 6 / MeeGo Harmattan, I'm quite sure someone will rebuild it for the N9 as well, quite soon.

'til then, when it comes to emulators/VMs, the EmuMaster pretty much covers the rest - NES, SNES, GB(A), PSX and Amiga (UAE).Reply

I expect Nokia and Intel partnership to continueBut this Nokia CEO stephen elop ruined everything for NokiaFirst He went against what consumers wanted & went with WP7 instead of androidHe killed Meego and stopped Meego devicesN9 was overly priced and Made available in very few countriesEvery single thing was donePurposelySad :(Reply

Steve Jobs already proved that consumers are idiots. the minority of consumers want android. The majority want something that works, is pretty, and is fun to use. This is the definition of Windows Phone 7. Elop is saving Nokia by betting the farm on Microsoft. Who cares if he has to alienate blind android fanboys such as yourself.Reply

I have all 3 phone OS's in my home. My wife uses the Android and she hates it, as do I. (She started with WP7 and switched because she didn't like it either, but wishes she had it back now.) I'm using the WP7, but it was a hard decision to leave iOS, mainly because of the superior map app. But the WP7's audio and video quality is far superior to iOS. You're too restricted on the .264 profile allowed on iOS for whatever reason.

Other than that, as far as software selection available, everyone can find anything they need on all 3 devices. The software selection on WP7 is already robust, and it's only the beginning.

When you say audio and video quality are you referring to playback? You can easily use apps like AV Player to playback different formats. High def h.264 looks great on the iPhone 4S in AV Player, not to mention it supports a variety of other formats.Reply

Exactly, sprockkets. Let these people talk themselves into whatever they want. It's a free market. And nothing makes me laugh better than an Apple or Winphone fangirl calling Droid users fanbois. LMAO. Not only are Droid phones at the top of the sales charts, they are at the top of the performance charts overall (as this article shows). Just let them lie themselves to sleep at night and move on. Reply

The iPhone 4S is at the top of the pile as far as performance goes. That is reality.

Secondly - you both miss the point. People tend to only buy Android over iPhone because it's cheaper. If they were both the same price, you could bet that Android would not be the biggest. Of course, Apple has found the sweet spot in pricing so wouldn't want to change.

Thirdly - Android is only bigger because there are more handsets available, from numerous manufacturers, so no one company actually benefits as much as Apple does. Similarly, no one handset is as popular or in demand as the iPhone 4S right now.

Finally - there are so so many VERY cheap and totally incomparable and retro phones which run old and rubbish hardware with old and rubbish versions of Android which bolster the statistics and provide a false impression.Reply

You're too stupid to see the context of my comment, albeit I should have put a semi-colon instead of a period after "the minority of consumers want android". Read the next sentence. Dipshit. Only technogeek nerds WANT Android. Reply

its ok, let the fanboys struggle with that os, my sis switched to lumia 800 because she's fed up with the two android phone she had

note on consumer (that aren't geeks like us) purchases, they either listen to a friend or get pushed around by the sale people, the rest is marketting (eg. iphone) so no such thing as "every one wants android" crap...Reply

So your idea of saving Nokia is to make every Nokia phone run Android so it has to compete with every other OEM using Android and has an ecosystem that appeals to only cheap, profitless devices or geeks, instead of going after the profitable markets by creating a quality and unique experience Nokia can control.

WP7 is their best chance for survival. It's late to the game but WP7 is a brilliant OS, the second best mobile OS and development platform on the market today after iOS/Xcode.

As David Pogue said, It's only downfall is that "it's not popular because it's not popular." Another year could change all that and both Nokia and MS have the money and talent to hold on for many years looking for their opportunity.Reply

Seems to me that most WP7 phones ship for a lot less money than Android hardware does. So I don't know why the margins would be so small. As fas as I know, WP7 also costs licensing whereas Android is free (in theory, MS still gets money for it from some manufacturers).

Use whatever floats your boat, but don't think any one of them is superior in their own right. They are not.Reply

If this would have been what consumers wanted, why was nokia going down so hard?ExactlyHe saves their asses right now. Those N9 fans are loud on internet geek forums and discussions. They are not enough to make them survive, though.WP7 is a very geeky os, one that you could love if you moved beyond "omg they changed their plans to survive they're SO uncool".

and i'm glad they did NOT went the android route. if you want android, there are already enough options. They need to have something that differenciates them from the masses, without the actual investement into building something on their own that is different.Reply

this is really,really pretty....The N9 was rather prettier though.BTW could anybody tell me why exactly did elop ditch meego.It was functional,zippy and i would take it over mango given the choice...the only thing it lacked was a good ecosystem,ah well..R.I.P MeeGo.Reply

problem is that they will need to rebuild another eco system, market the hell out of the thing, and then there is the amount of apps they need to overcome... before that they will need to find ways to tell people why it is superior to other OSes to regular consumers that can't tell the difference between android and ios if you only show them the app screen

Ok, the N9 is out for a few months now and I don't understand why there wasn't a review of it here. Especially now with the Lumia 800 review, the obvious question is how do they compare? Did Elop have a point? I can understand Nokia trying to bury the N9 given their new direction, but I would expect tech sites (especially anandtech) to be really curious about this comparison.Reply

Because Nokia didn't send them one. I don't think AnandTech typically goes out and buys things retail (ala Consumer Reports), but rather reviews what companies ship them. I think reviewing things purchased at retail is the better way of doing it, but it costs more money and guarantees your competitors will get their reviews out much sooner than you will.Reply

"There’s an huge amount riding on the Lumia series, which are Nokia’s first devices running Windows Phone 7.5."

This is the SECOND SENTENCE of the article. Do you have any idea how many first-time readers will immediately move on with their search and never return? The "There's an" and "which are" are incorrect (Lumia series is singular, key word THE.) Instead, try "There's a lot riding on the Lumia series, which is Nokia's first to run Windows Phone 7.5."

"On the right side, Nokia’s puts their volume rocker above the power button, and then at on lower quarter is the mandatory two-step camera button."

"raises that backside up off surfaces"

"the looks and feels department"

"which we’ll also be reviewing soon" should be "which we'll also review soon" (this is a poor writing style, not a mistake)

There are more from the first page. Brian, this article is full of information, but it's just too difficult to extract. What has always been the cornerstone of AT is the beautifully written articles. For the love of God, hire an editor. I'd edit your articles for $100 a pop.Reply

Agreed, a single read-through should be enough to catch most of these things, no editor required. I don't understand how any of these make it through unless the author simply types it up and immediately hits "post." Very unprofessional.Reply

"There's an" is incorrect, but "which are" is correct. It has nothing to do with pluralization of "Lumia" and everything to do with "first devices." You wouldn't say "which is Nokia's first devices."Reply

I'd been wanting to ditch my iPhone 3GS and switch over to a Windows Phone ever since WP7 launched. The problem was that the hardware that was available just plain sucked. It was like the manufacturers weren't even trying. When Nokia announced that they were going to develop WP7 devices, I figured that I would hang on to the iPhone a little longer and wait and see what they could come up with as I'd always loved the build quality of Nokia phones, even my mid '90s brick. Fortunately in the meantime, Microsoft released WP7.5, which fixed a number of issues that were a down side to the WP7 devices, which was a real plus.

When the Lumia 800 finally dropped in the UK, there were no announcements of it being released anywhere else, and I wanted one pretty badly. I ordered one online from a UK carrier and had it shipped to Australia. In the meantime, I contacted my provider and ordered a Micro SIM for it.

I've had the device for about a month now and I have to agree with everything that has been said in this article - I'm really happy with it and it's a huge improvement over the iOS, the build quality is fantastic and it's got a great "feel" to it when using the hardware. I give it an honest 8.5 / 10 and feel the need to point out that the fact that it doesn't get a 9 or 9.5 are all software related (as in the battery issues mentioned, as well as deficiencies in the WP7.5 OS and Zune software).

It's a really great product and if you're sick of iOS and Android devices or if you want to try something different, you should definately give it a go!Reply

I've never been able to agree with the poor hardware specs argument mainly because mobile operating systems differ so much in requirements.

A dual core processor on an Android device makes sense because it almost eliminates some of the slowdowns you get with bloated applications or the OS itself. Apple's A5 is tailored to fit their device specifically, so we know the requirements aren't even a negotiable issue.

I don't think WP7 requires as many resources as smartphone advertising has led us to believe. Personally, i've yet to see one get seriously hung up on a 1 Ghz SoC. Even though i can see why developers themselves would be interested in powerful hardware, i think powerhouse applications really fit into a small niche of smartphone use.Reply

For the most part, my Lumia 800 is fast, responsive and smooth. There are a few times where you do notice a bit of a slowdown, but certainly nothing worse than any other phone I've ever come across.

A smartphone will always be a balancing act between power consumption, cost and performance, while maintaining a small form-factor. While a Xeon based smartphone would be possible, I don't see one being commercially successful for some reason :DReply

Making core applications and libraries thread on a dual-core or quad-core SoC is just one way of speeding up some of the slower bits. But that's just a stop gap and just one way of doing it. You could just as easily do improvements for single-core SoC's there as well. Fragmentation actually helps overcome some of this. As the vendors put in improvements and eventually gets Google to redesign or implement new things. Just as you would get an actual NDK for WP at some point and can actually write and port normal applications to that platform. Which isn't trouble free. Which will hit limitations and which will fragment ones phone makers invest some into that platform. Nokia and ST-E will bring in none-Qualcomm hardware. They will bring in core alterations to the software and platform and eventually as it has already proven it will be hard to maintain everything.

Just remember WP7 didn't even get sockets until Mango. Stuff like Spotify was ready for MeeGo at pretty much when Nokia released a device and released before Mango got it's client. Just because it got another model to paint stuff on the screen doesn't mean it is superior. Of course poor launchers can destroy a phone, but that is not where it's heading at with many of the vendors having already improved on that. Just look in another year and you will see a whole different market with dual-core being the standard platform driving WP. It took a year to even get basic applications on there... The development kit hasn't been proven as good as advertised by astroturfers. Nobody will make a business on a platform where you can sit and wait a year for even features 10 year old feature phones had.Reply

I agree with that, and i do not mean to insist that WP7 is or will be superior to anything else.

The options and large market share that Android offers makes it extremely attractive to multiple vendors, and on top of that, it's flexibility as a development platform is the icing on the cake. Combine that with Google's monitoring of software compatibilities and updating to suit, you end up with a solid, stable platform, just like their most recent releases are shaping up to be.

WP7 has neither of those qualities just yet. Although Microsoft may move in that direction with future releases,but they're taking their time to do it. Taking the time to ensure hardware compatibility is great, but like you mentioned, taking too long getting it up to speed will achieve nothing other than wasting a lot of time and money.Reply

Yeah, aren't there like 200,000 apps now? All of the needed ones are there.

I've been very impressed with WP7 Mango. The fact is that you don't need apps because lots of functionality is built in. People hub gets you Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, as well as standard contact info and links to send texts, IMs, emails, post on walls, etc. The Messaging hub combines texting, IM, and emails, grouped by the person you're conversing with. The Xbox hub places all of your games in one place. The Music+Video hub places all of your media and media-watching apps in one place. Bing Search combines web search, Sound Hound, Google Goggles, and Yelp.

And live tiles on the main screen let me see what I'm looking for without opening an app.

The strength of WP7 is the integration of services in one place. It's perfect for the average consumer.Reply

MSN/Live is the most used chat client in the world, and its not paticularly close. Facebook is likely second by now, and it builds that in as well. Yahoo was right after MSN/Live a few years ago, I don't know where it is today, however MSN and Yahoo interoperate, you can add your Y! contacts directly to your MSN/Live contact list.

AIM is dying. GChat has a substantial userbase, but its not at the level of others. Thier bases are pretty well covered in that regard.

Youtube worked out of the box for me. Not sure why you think it dosen't support it. Plus there are tons of third party clients available for free as apps if you don't like the built in player or the custom one that HTC and others ship.

Exactly. Youtube works for me with no extra apps. The Adobe Reader app is free in the marketplace, although I have yet to open a PDF file on the phone. Of course, Office docs can be opened with no problems, which is 99% of what I want to open.

I'll admit, this is my first smartphone, but I have used my Dad's iPhone, and have played with my sister's Android phone. WP7 is easier to use, and does way more out-of-the-box.Reply

Android can't open PDF files out of the box unless it has an app installed to do so, just like WP7. And MSN and Facebook chat are the two most popular chat services in the world. Finally, it's missing a YouTube client only because Google doesn't permit Microsoft to include one out of the box. It's not a big deal though. Several great YouTube clients are just a couple clicks away in the Marketplace.Reply

It is a really weak ecosystem, the number of apps may not be 0, but it is low compared to Android and iOS, and more importantly, the quality of the apps is a lot lower.

I felt WP could catch, perhaps surpass, Android and iOS by now, but I was wrong, iOS is still strong, and Android moved a lot, many WP advantages were eliminated with ICS (and that's its real competition: Android, not iOS).

I own both a Galaxy S II running ICS (CM9) and an Omnia 7, although WP7 was a lot less uglier than GB, and is objectively good, ICS is really, really good, I no longer miss anything when using the S II instead of my Omnia 7.Reply

The state of the market is completely different, now you can get a modern smartphone with Android or iOS on almost any carrier on almost all countries.Back then the iPhone was only available on a handful of carriers and countries.

Moreover, by now, Android had Eclair and the Droid, which pushed Android forward, as likeable as the Lumia 800 is, I highly doubt it is or will play the same role as the Droid.

But will see, hopefully WP will improve and will become a solid third (and hopefully it will stop being one or two hardware generations behind).Reply

It seems you have the High and Low levels switched in the Display Metrics table. If so, and max brightness is just 196 nits for the High level, you probably should use the High brighness level in the battery tests for an apples to apples comparison. Reply

Finally no thanks to Microsoft or Nokia Marketing or Carrier in Mexico I´m going to have mine thru Expansys Unlocked! Really a lot to do to market WP7 worldwide! More than 20 models last year but only LG Optimus arrive to Mexico thru Telcel! I decide to wait to mature a little more... My decision was right Optimus has Battery problems. Still Ipm going to buy an, Thinkpad W, Asus Transformer Prime & maybe at last an iphone 5! Sorry IT Administrator & Consultor need to test & from an opinion. Already have 2 blackberrys! I before all of them a Dopod 900! Still functioning! Long wait!Reply

I was hoping for more, I know it is a bit misguided but the opening paragraph said it would look into the new features that Mango brought to WP7. They were barely even talked about.

I understand that Apple and Android are dominant, so when they sneeze out a tiny update they get an entire article just for the update. This was just a gloss over of WP7.5. Anandtech should have given it a review on its own.

I know Brian doesn't use WP7 as his smartphone, but quips like this bug me "It’s is telling about the functionality still missing from the core of WP7 that you need to go download a YouTube and Adobe Reader application from the market to use those things"

Well, you don't HAVE to download a YouTube app - you COULD just go to the youtube web page. Is it telling about the functionality still missing from the core of iOS 5 that you still have to install a facebook app? Facebook is fairly well integrated into WP7, and so is twitter. I know it is still missing things, but these are the items that should have come up in the Mango review which just never happened.Reply

Android can't natively read PDF files without a third party app either, but I don't see what the big deal is regardless. If you try to open a PDF file on a WP7 device it asks if you want to install a PDF reader from the Marketplace and proceeds to do that for you. Painless.Reply

I wanted to spend a lot more time codifying why (for me at least) I think that WP7 needs more before it really feels as powerful as Android or iOS. We've been big fans of WP7 for a while now (I was at MIX10 when it launched, and we covered the WP7 launch) but I still can't shake the feeling that it should be more at this point.

Codifying that was my original objective for part of this article, and obviously some of that didn't really make it though in the end. I use WP7 now and then, but I'll be first to admit it isn't nearly as much as Android and iOS.

You can't watch youtube videos without the app on WP. If you try, the website instructs you to download the youtube app first. You can browse youtube all you want, just can't play the videos. The way the site words this almost makes it sound like it's youtube's fault, but I wouldn't know.Reply

So, this is a fairly mediocre phone as far as performance goes, but the reviewer really wants to believe it to be better than it is.

It's pretty obvious that WP7+ needs a dual core SoC, with a much better GPU. When that happens, we'll see a phone that can properly compare to the other top phones on other OS's, such as Android and iOS. Until then, no excuses can fix the slow nature of this model. If this were a cheaper, lower end model, it might be worthwhile, but for the flagship model, it's simply not worth it.

And then, AMOLED isn't really ready for prime time. Despite the propaganda from the manufacturers who use them, I've not yet seen a review of an AMOLED device that was more than about half as bright as a good LCD model, and often no better than a third as bright. This one seems poor. To say that it seems brighter than it can possibly be, is nonsense.

I hope that we will see much better phones than this one during the year, and soon. If not, it will be another reason why WP7 will struggle.Reply

I'd agree with that assertion - WP7 does need to make the move to dual core, (and will make the move to dual core) if nothing else to get all the other features that come with it. I touched on this a little, but better encoders, better decoders, and on the QCT side better baseband all come on the high-end before eventually showing up on the midrange.

The other curious thing is that AMOLED can actually go way brighter (with some of Supercurio's hacks, you can drive the SGS2 SAMOLED Plus display up past 500 nits) but you end up just burning through battery. Obviously there's still some balancing being done by OEMs to keep battery from being totally depleted.

There are several very good reasons why AMOLEDs aren't bright. LED's of all kinds, but especially OLED'S, are very constrained by temperature. The higher they are driven, the hotter they get. The hotter they get, the shorter the life. Driving an AMOLED screen to the brightness of the 4S, for example, would bring the lifetime down to less than a quarter of what it is now.

In addition, this isn't a linear relationship. More voltage results in less than a 1:1 relationship in brightness, and an even worse relationship when looking at current draw. There's a good reason why UI's designed for AMOLED's use a great deal of black with thin lettering. On average, right now, even the best AMOLEDs use more current than do most LCDs with high efficiency LED backlighting. I find it amusing when I read that AMOLEDs use less energy, when they use more.

I have a lot of LED's here, up to 200 watts (for a single LED). I've yet to find one that lives up to its promise, though they're getting better. I would give AMOLED's at least another two years, and with IGZO displays coming out, possibly another four years until they equal the efficiency.

AMOLEDs typically dont come half as bright as the brightest lcds, hell the nokia 701 gets over 1000nits brightness!! so thats 5 times brighter than this model.

However brightness tests like this rarely carry through to real life,especially when talking about AMOLEDS, they have the best contrast ratio as well as saturated colours which make the screen pop, you never read a review about an AMOLED phone and get complaints about it being dull..quite the contrary the AMOLED always seems to be brighter..If brian hadnt ran that test, he wouldnt have mentioned that the screen seems dull.

Some of the appeal of AMOLEDS is that over saturated colour profile, which seems to be a marmite issue, half the people prefer IPS LCD and half swear by a decent RGB AMOLED.

AMOLEDS have many advantages over LCD though, they are thinner, much much better contrast, far far superior response time, more eye popping colours and better power levels when watching dark seens like movies...The sunlight issue which was the worse complaint has disapeared.

One of the biggest complaints about AMOLED compared to a high quality LCD is color accuracy..BUT although this is a bug for some, most people PREFER the saturated colors, indeed when i read reviews on you tube of people comparing the most accurate hd phone display yet..the IH-IPS display on the LG Nitro the reviewers said they much prefered the nexus display, and that somehow it gave the impression of being BRIGHTER..despite what these tests say.Reply

Slow nature of this model? I have one of the launch WP7 phones (LG Quantum), and experience no slowness. The fact is that MS has optimized the OS to perform on a single-core CPU. The phone OEMs are free to add an improved GPU, but there's no need for it. Javascript benchmarks are meaningless to me. Who browses the web for any amount of time on a 4" screen?Reply

If someone spent all day every day running Javascript, I might agree with you. But so little of the time spent using the phone is spent doing that. Everything else about the phone feels much faster than ANY Android model, regardless of CPU speed or number of cores. Having everything be GPU accelerated makes a world of difference in how fast it feels.

You just never wait for anything other than your data connection on these phones.Reply

Sounds like you aren't thoroughly familiar with Windows Phone. As far as performance goes, my Titan consistently feels faster and more fluid than my Galaxy S II, which has ungodly specs. Benchmarks may paint one picture, but real world use paints a completely different one.

Speaking of the Titan, I can't believe Brian didn't mention it at all. Its camera is a clear step above both the Focus S and Lumia 800.Reply

What evidence do you have for WP7 needing dual core? My HTC HD7 runs circles around my coworker's Galaxy S II with a lower clock speed and half of the number of cores.

WP7 renders graphics using the GPU so everything feels fast and fluid. Android doesn't even attempt to do that until 3.0 (which isn't available on phones). ICS adds it, but not many models are getting that yet.

AMOLED is beautiful. Fully saturated colors and infinite contrast ratio. I'd take an AMOLED at half of the rated brightness of an LCD any day. The AMOLED screens in production aren't too dim. But some of the LCDs can get too bright.Reply

I agree AMOLEDS are awesome!, i havnt seen a modern one but i saw my mates HTC desire when that came out and it was cool, if they have improved since then then i want one!

I havnt used WP7 so i cant comment on responsivness, but what i will say is that multi cores devices actually bring the power consumption DOWN, whilst making something that can be multithreaded eg web browsing even smoother, it also gives games developers power to make better games, the GPU on the old snapdragon is weak, so while the OS may run smooth thanks to miccrosofts supreme optimizations,you cant tell me you wouldnt want better more powerfull engine inside, that gives better battery life as well as better games would you?

Either way, WP7 whilst clearly very slick, is selling like ice creams in antartica, and i think this has to do with the pecieved out of date specs, like NFC duel core LTE etc, people want the lastest gadgets with the same stuff there friends have..

I understand Nokia doesn't want the N9 to succeed or their Windows Phone strategy is doomed. But this is an independent news site, isn't it? Where's the N9 in the comparison charts? Where's the N9 review? Comparing the Lumia with the phone it inherited the design from (the N9) is only logical. Hiding it from your readers is not very professional.

Yes, Nokia decided to "kill" Meego (that's just a public statement; it's obviously their "plan B" and will be the basis for their upcoming "low end" Meltemi), but for a whole lot of people who couldn't care less about "ecosystems" (which is just a new euphemism for "lock-in"), its applications offer is pretty nice. In some areas, like telephony, is much better than anything else on the market, and because it's fairly open, lots of hacks and community apps and add-ons are being developed every day. Honestly, unless you lack any knowledge of technology (and then, why would you want a smartphone?) the N9 is currently offering much better value than the Lumia or any other Windows Phone 7 device.Reply

I'm looking at jumping from Android to WPx... as it is, I am running the free WP7 Launcher on my Android that makes using the phone so much easier than the default Android one.

I see postings from WP7 owners wishing the titles would rotate with the phone (As we know, not even iOS and Android does this)...

But there is the cool thing, the WP7 Launcher for Android *DOES* rotate the tiles - which not only looks cool, its handy and allows you to read the titles. Of course the wide titles can't rotate, but this function would SO be worth it.Reply

Minor nitpick, though. The F number by convention is reported as a reciprocal when used with lower case 'f', and as a normal number when used with upper case 'F'. It's just one of those weird notation conventions in photography.

Example:

f/2.0 == F2.0 == an aperture with a diameter half the focal length of the lens.

If they could get that rumored Lumia 900 on Sprint with the 4.3" screen, I would finally be able to switch to a pure software keyboard. The keyboard WP7 uses is utterly fantastic, from its sound to its autocorrect. It's juts great. However on the 3.6" screen on my Arrive, it's a bit cramped even when in landscape mode. However something as large as 4.3" is certainly enough to make me move.Reply

I'm currently a BlackBerry user: nice sound tool, but I'm on the market for something "newer" and more "future proof".

I use my phone as a tool and not having a replaceable battery is a capital sin for me: I want to have a second charged battery at hand and be able to quickly replace the dead one when I run out of gas.

Same problem with iPhones (not to mention my allergy to apples).Android: I had a Samsung Galaxy Nexus in my hands for few minutes and it looks quite OK, but it is too large for my tastes and habits.

I want to make calls, some SMS texting, a fast user interface, a good browser, a robust Outlook and GoogleApps integration, possiblity to access and store my most used and important documents (Word, Excel, PDF), a good and very robust passwords "keychain". Very valuable pluses would be a good media (mostly music) library and possiblity to use Skype (even if only when on WiFi).

It is my feeling that WP 7.5 could be the right stuff for me, but is there any WP 7.5 phone around with a replacebale battery?

Windows Phone definitely does not have good Google Apps integration. Really the only thing Google that is done well is Gmail. The phone does do Office better than anything else, as should be expected.

The Zune music library with Zune Pass is excellent, IMO, but it does pretty much tie you to a single machine. It's nice that it syncs over WiFi painlessly - the lack of "USB Storage mode" is a little overblown, IMO.

Oddly, there is no Skype support at all, although that HAS to be coming soon as Microsoft now owns Skype.Reply

Commenting further on Zune Pass, it's actually four devices (any combination of PCs, Zune, and Windows Phone), but if you have a second family member using the pass, you are essentially going to each have one mobile device and one PC. If you are alone, in theory you can use multiple PCs, but then keeping synchronized is a mess and you end up just using the one PC.Reply

Even the Gmail integration feels a little half-assed in Android. On my Atrix it is a huge pain having one mail app for all my other accounts, and one for just Gmail. I'd much prefer if there was one unified mail app. With my previous Android phone, HTC did have an app that could check Gmail with everything else, but then I wound up with double email notifications since the Gmail app would also notify me. I haven't tried ICS yet, but there's a lot of little annoyances in Android that add up to a bit of a hot mess in the end.Reply

I don't have this phone or an android or an iphone. Last year I shelled out for an unlocked N8 after doing some research. Personally for me it's a awesome piece of tech. The Ovi Store is somewhat limited in it's selection but this really doesn't faze me much. All of the most popular stuff was included or could be a downloaded for free. The processor is a little long in the tooth but I haven't seen another phone that comes close to the hardware packed into my N8. When I bought it I purchased an Otterbox case as well. Most people who see the phone in the case think it is a cheap android.

Ihave used my girlfriend's iphone 3 and played with alot of droid phones. Recently I bought a gingerbread tablet. The first thing I noticed about android is that it is alot of fun on my tablet but would hate to be stuck with android on a phone.

I thought the iphone was pretty nice but would hate to be stuck with itunes and all the other things apple. I wasn't impressed with the phone aspect of the phone either.

When people would ask me what apps I could run or how fast my processor is most of the time I'd say... I I dunno. It do know I have a 12mp camera with a real xeon flash, bt3, usb to go, real gps with a lifetime of free maps all around the world, amoled screen, hdmi, works as a wifi hotspot and 48 gb of storage. People look at the case and think it's another cheap plastic knock off until I show them the aluminum body that is...

This hasn't necessarily got anything to do with the Lumia, but wanted to share it nonetheless.I don't understand Nokia's reputation for solid phones quite frankly. My experience is a small sample size, but the experiences made in my circle of family and friends is nothing but horrendous. A friend had an N85 which broke 2 times (couldn't dial anymore once and display crack the second time) which got replaced by a N95. That had random reboots and bad call quality. A family member from my wifes side had a N97 which they can't do anything with because it is much too slow. Another friend got a Nokia X8 but portrait/landscape orientation doesn't work one bit. I don't know anyone who has a Nokia Smartphone and is happy and content.

Granted, Samsung, Apple, LG, HTC etc. aren't marvels of quality control. But at least they don't have a reputation like that. They get called out when shitty stuff happens. I don't see the same level of scrutiny applied to Nokia.

As for the phone reviewed here. I feel thoroughly underwhelmed. Battery/charging issues, small display (personal taste), ordinary build quality, irreplaceable battery, great camera.... My SGS2 shoots photos that I cannot distinguish from my point and shoot (Canon IS590), that is good enough for me (again, personal taste).

But since WP7 is kinda supposed to be on the cheap side, 420€ for this thing is too much. I get an SGS2 for the same kind of money with a better screen (RGB>RGBG), better SoC performance and better battery times. If you want WP7, go with another brand would be my advice and use the money saved to buy the next generation. This thing ain't worth it. :)Reply

Before that, what is the X8? There's only the X7 in Nokia's portfolio.

Well, Nokia feature and dumb phones back in the day have that reputation of solidness. My family has quite good experience with Nokia, especially with the E series. My E63 is with me for 3 years going on the 4th. My dad's E5 is holding up amazingly too.

The thing is Nokia doesn't get called out because it was the best before the iPhone came out, and if you

I think mileage will differ. Like how some guys swear by Acer while I keep having issues with it.

I am skipping this generation of Nokia WP7 phones because of my contract which doesn't end in June. But I do think the Lumia 800 is a solid first attempt.Reply

I spent 5 days with a Nokia Lumia 800. I loved it, but returned it. Read the whole story (compared to the iPhone 4S) at the link below:

"The Nokia Lumia 800 and Windows Phone Mango 7.5 make a formidable combination. Beautiful build quality, gorgeous display, immediate responsiveness and an extremely elegant operating system (clearly better in many respects than iOS5). I bought the phone 5 days ago to replace my painfully slow iPhone 3G. Despite this praise however, the phone is going back today, replaced by my shiny new iPhone 4S – “what?!” I hear you say – well read on."

Be warned that some grey market versions of this phone (notably Hong Kong) do not come with Nokia Drive or Nokia Music.

The phone has a great feel and looks great on the desk. But the software really lets the phone down. It is obviously microsoft software which always lack innovation. The user experience is defined by the programmed functions - i.e. it's bottom up instead of top-down. e.g. when you go to bed you set an alarm. Instead of the phone asking whether it should turn off the phone function until the alarm goes off, you have to set flight mode. This is 2012 not 1990. Nokia gave me corporate blah blah and passed the buck to microsoft, so I created www.nokia-lumia-800.org to vent my frustration and collect everyones thoughts.Reply

According to Engadget and a few others the new firmware (as of today I think) nearly triples the battery life, I'd like to see that tested. That's either some crazy optimization or some crazy bad original firmwareReply